Seminarians' Pilgrimage

Today I was told that it would be impossible to get from Paris to Lourdes in under 24 hours. Not once or twice, but six times.

Michael and I left our hotel in Paris at 5:40AM hoping to catch the 6:30 train to Lourdes. When we arrived at the train station, there were massive crowds gathered around the ticket offices. The French workers are still on strike and have caused transportation to come to a stand still. The 5 trains headed to Lourdes were canceled until Sunday. When we finally made it up to the ticket booth, we were told it would be impossible to travel to Lourdes today. There was only one train leaving for the south of France for the entire day, and it was already over booked. The women behind the counter suggested that we just hop on that train and hope to talk to the conductor.

Not only was every seat taken, but every available space to stand was taken up by another body. We rode what seemed like to be a clown car for five hours to Toulouse. This beautiful town was much closer to Lourdes than Paris, yet it was still several hours away. We once again went to the ticket offices and explained our situation. Here we were also told that we would not be able to go anywhere else for the day. We talked to multiple workers as their English abilities varied greatly. Finally, we were able to workout a series of busses and trains to get from Toulouse to Lourdes before sun down.

We bought our tickets and ran the gauntlet of transportation. Around 9 pm we arrived in Lourdes to a beautiful sunset. We found a hostel very close to the main shrine and stumbled upon the nightly rosary procession. After praying in front of the grotto, we returned to our hostel for the night.

At the time I am writing this I have not been in Lourdes for more than 3 hours, but I can surely say it is one of the most beautiful cities I have every visited.

– Luke

We are still adjusting to our new time zone, and although we did not have much planned for the day, it has been long. Two highlights worth mentioning include attending Mass at a Melikite Church and visiting the catacombs of Paris.

We stumbled upon the church on our first day in Paris and thought that it would be worth coming back to. Since they only offer weekday Masses on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we decided to make time for it today. The Melikite Church is in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, though it belongs to the cultural heritage of the Eastern Orthodox, using the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The Divine Liturgy, which is their name for Mass, was again in French, and so we understood very little of the prayers. I’m not sure if we would have understood more had it been in Greek. Neverthless, we tried to follow along as best we could by making the gestures of a parishioner in front of us  and murmuring some prayers in English when we recognized the Creed, Our Father, or other prayers common to our own liturgy. We could not understand much, yet the liturgy had a special chatacteristic that was both intensly human and divine. It seemed to bring religous truths to a human and tangible level while yet showing the radical transendence of God and our dependence on him. In all, it was a beautiful experience and we’ll worth the hour long walk from the Eiffel Tower. You know what they say: “when in Paris attend a Divine Liturgy that originated in the East.”

Our second note worthy stop were the Parisian Catacombs. The catacombs are the final resting place of about 6 million sets of Bones from various graveyards throughout Paris. The bones were transferred there at a time when the graveyards were filling up too fast and various old mining systems were found to be collapsing throughout the city. Following one such tunnel, it took a good 10 or 15 minutes before we finally arrived at the Ossuarium. After seeing a number of plaques in French, I began to hope for a few in Latin so that I might put my education to use (we take some latin for seminary and I am also a classics double major). I quickly got my wish and no sooner did I stop to pause and read when a man asked whether we spoken english. “Yes.” “And french?” To which we replied, “No, but we do speak a little latin!” The remainder of the time was spent translating various latin plaques and saying some prayers for the dead. It was an eerie experience with walls of bones to our left and right, but it certainly made me think of the significance of life and inevitability of death. 

Together, these two events from today served to remind me how close God is to us and how strongly we ought to seek him.

-Michael

We had set our alarm this morning to 6:30 AM, thinking we would walk to the 8:00 AM Mass at Notre Dame. When we finally woke at 9 I knew we hadn’t quite adjusted to the time change. Since we missed our planned Mass time at Notre Dame, we decided to head on to our next destination for the day, Sacré-Cœur. 

If you are unaware of French politics, just as I am, then you probably don’t know of the massive worker strikes throughout France. Much of the French workers have organized walk outs and marches to protest some of the new laws to be voted on. This has caused major delays in transportation within Paris. Since the buses and trains are unreliable, we have been walking to every destination. 

Coincidentally, when we arrived at the basilica, Mass was just about to begin. While we were praying before Mass, a nun came over to Michael and asked him, in French, if he would like to lector for Mass. I am fairly certain his response was along the lines of “No, sorry… English”. Although Michael didn’t lector, Mass was beautiful.

We grabbed some quick food for lunch and walked to the Louvre. The museum is so large it took us several minutes just to find the entrance. Unfortunately, we missed the last English speaking tour of the day by 5 minutes. On our own we took 2 hours wandering around one of the most impressive collections of history I have ever seen. Studying at Seton Hall University, we have the unique opportunity to head to New York City and visit the Metropolitan Museum. Without a doubt the Louvre is much larger and grander. This was a stop that I wished to visit, but when we finally entered I had no idea where to go or what to see. We took a break to rest our weary legs and plan the rest of our visit.

The last stop of the day was the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal. Here Saint Catherine Laboure is buried under the altar. We ended by praying vespers and asking the Blessed Mother to intercede for our future parishioners.

– Luke

Bonjour! Bénédictions de France! And thank God for Google translate which has helped us, unprepared speakers, to pick up a little French on our first day in Paris!

After the long travels from Sun Prairie to Miniapolis  (thanks to Luke’s aunt and uncle for the ride!), a pleasently unexpected switch to a direct flight, and some jogging around Paris, Dcn. Jared Holzhuter’s blessing has seen us safely to our hotel, 28 hours later, for an actual nights sleep. The good Deacon was kind enough to join us and our families for a pilgrimage blessing before we hit the road.

After quickly eating lunch and dropping off our gear in our hotel room, we hiked through the rainy streets to Notre Dame, stopping in the French Pantheon and a Church on the way. Finally there, we paused at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel to say evening prayer and a thanksgiving for our safe travels. There we also offered our pilgrimage to the Blessed Mother, asking her to safely lead us closer to her Son.

After such a long day, the “I can’t believe this is happening” nerves that I felt leading up to the trip have settled into a hopeful confidence of “this is really happening now.” The uncertainty shifted into appreciation and expectation once we left the plane. We had arrived in Paris and so began the first of many days, not yet determined, but open to the awaiting adventures.

Some of you have asked us to carry you in our prayers, and there are many more for whom we have already been praying without bring asked. I invite you to continue sending us prayer requests, especially as we have good wifi now! I hope that this blog can be a fruitfull way to share our journey with you so that we can both keep eachother in thought and prayer. May you walk the Camino with us on a spiritual pilgrimage of your own.

-Michael

Hopefully, this summer will be the last free time of our lives.

Although we are both from Wisconsin, Michael and I became friends when we entered the seminary and started our studies at the Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. I didn’t know Michael prior to entering the seminary, but we quickly became friends. Both of us are studying to become Catholic priests in our home Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin. In our eight years of studying for the priesthood, four will be spent in college and four will be spent in major seminary where we will be stationed in parishes for the summers, leaving the summer of 2016 our last free summer.

Having worked as counselors at a catholic camp (Camp Gray) for the last two summers, we knew we wanted to spend this summer traveling abroad.  Coincidently, this summer is also World Youth Day, which is a large gathering of young Catholics across the world.  With careful planning and ample time we have decided to trek across Europe on a pilgrimage.

The main objectives are to visit Notre Dame in Paris, Lourdes, in south of France, walk the entire Camino de Santiago, rest our weary legs in Fatima, Portugal, and finally, fly to Poland to celebrate World Youth Day.

This blog will cover our travels and give you unique insights not only into our day to day travels but also our path of discernment to the priesthood.  We hope to keep you posted every other day; however, this will be dictated by the availability of Wi-Fi.  Michael and I will alternate posts so that you may get to know both of us better from our points of view.  Feel free to comment or add questions to posts, which we will answer when we can.

Please pray for us, and be assured that we will be praying for all of you.

-Luke